Today was as usual, a busy Saturday. But I feel quite satisfied and relieved, and that's why i post.

Today started off with sectionals.. not many comments to make. Tried syncing 4th floor and 3rd floor together to play the pieces (violin ones and twos). When Joycelyn poked her head out of the side of the building, i nearly plunged down in shock. Cus I couldn't see her other part of the body, it looked like she was some matrix figure. I was more worried for her head because it looked quite disconnected and out of place looking down from the 4th floor. After sectionals, stayed back a while to play.


Then went out with my parents for lunch. After lunch, we were walking around in Square 2 and walked into this Japanese shop selling food and other things. Then suddenly, there was something big flying in the air. People who were in the shop started looking up and stared. They were all saying things like It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a UFO! Ok, I added in the last 2 sentences. So this bird got in from somewhere and it couldn't get out, so it was flying inside the shop. It must have come from some air vent cus it would be quite hard for it to navigate it's way from the shopping centre entrance. Then suddenly, it flew towards the "window" facing out side the shopping centre. Then there was a *tok* sound and the bird landed behind the shelves. I think it must have thought there was a BANG HEAD HERE sign.


Then after that, TF, meeting to plan tf camp, then Chimes anniversary. Chimes turns 8 this year but we only had our first anniversary this year. Probably because we were too young to organise such a church event last time. Everyone did a good job and though there were some minor problems along the way, it managed to flow relatively smoothly. I wouldn't exactly think time has flown since 8 years ago, but all of us have definitely grown up a lot, not just in height but in thinking. Ah so, happy birthday, chimes.

Chimes - 2008

Today was day one of the very long awaited e-learning day. It started off at 7.20am. After 7.30am, there were many people online. And the MSN PMs were relatively optimistic. At around 7.35 - 8am, there were late comers, with appropriate PMs like, oh no, i'm late for ****** ____ ...

The first lesson kicked off - English. 15mins was spent locating the friendly forum. On average, the probability of being able to enter the page was 1 in 5. Sometimes, I got the dreaded "cannot open the page" sign. Wait, no, most of the time. So when I finally got in, I put up whatever I learnt from Wern li's presentation on CME: Friendship, credited her for it and ran off. I only bothered trying hard enough to open one of 3 threads. Anyway, Mrs S will understand that it's the thought that counts.

After that was Math. HeyMath!'s portal is much better than school's. The probability of seeing the page you wanted was an outstanding 1 in 1. I suddenly liked Math even more. A thumbs up for HeyMath. I think the school will need to find some other alternatives like YoEnglish! if they want to fix their edulearn portal problem.

Pure Humans was spent slacking/stoning in front of the computer. I originally planned to use the time to either complete violin practice or go swimming. But then the sky betrayed me and I decided not to go down in case I got struck by lightning. The only slightly unstoney thing I did during free period was probably to work on Chimes anniversary ppt (not precipitate).

As the edulearn day progressed, the edulearn lag factor increased linearly. It bacame so lag that I had to carefully plan out everything I wanted to click on the edulearn portal. It's like a problem solving skill practice. You have a list of options (Messages, Lessons, Quizes, Homework, Forum, Survey etc..) and all of them are closed. Only one can open at one time. There is no red blinking icon to show which link has been updated, so you have the painstakingly search through everything to locate your poor assignment. Each time you open a link, it takes almost a minute to load. Wait, it's just to see the list of items. So now, imagine you have finally found your teachers' present. You click the thing and try to open the gift. Over here, it's a 1 in 2 chance, but you have to wait a minute. Let's say, it's Chemistry. So you have 45mins to do the quiz, click here to proceed. You click, and the loading bar slowly millimeters it's way to the right. It finally reaches, and you hold your breath, hoping for the best. Then you get the dreadful sign mentioned earlier. You remind yourself that patience is a virtue and you continue trying. Probability at this advanced stage: 1 in 5. So now you finally see your chemistry quiz, complete the quiz in 5 mins and quickly click on submit. Then you see that there's an error on page and you can't submit your work. Then problem solving skill 2 starts...

Thankfully, the edulearn day ended at 11.30am or many people might have already committed voluntary euthanasia. There were facebook statuses and MSN PMs all united in cursing the poor portal. I predicted that a facebook group would be up soon. When I checked my email later today, sure enough, I was invited to join the I HATE E-LEARNING group. I don't think I'll join though. Should be more optimistic about elearning so that the school doesn't give up on giving us a partial holiday. I don't hate elearning, I just don't like the portal anyhow putting in some rubato or ritardando (music vocab, getting slower).

It's 11pm and I'm still conscious. The only reason is because Jean is playing with the piano now, and I can't sleep with that type of sound because I'll start focusing on the music (melody, harmony, chord progressions etc) and waste my time lying in bed.

Today was a rather warm day at school. Evangeline came into the classroom complaining about the heat. I refused to agree with her weather report until Devotion in the hall. From 7.20am all the way till 5.30pm, I was perspiring. I never perspired in school unless it was PE, sectionals or running around. And the back of the class is out of reach from the ceiling fan, there are no electricity outlet stuff nearby and the wire of the portable fan is too short. Anyway, there were a few funny incidents today. First, Evangeline spotted some immorality in the student suggestion forms Chandini gave out. The mouse at the bottom was wearing a shirt but without pants, so she suggested that the school organise a donation drive to give the poor mouse some pants. Then, she tried to give a demonstration on how to eat like a Jie Ying. Very comical. I shall type it down some day, or maybe make an instructional video on it. All the laughing only made the heat worse. Conclusion for today, that the average human has a melting point of 30+ degrees celsius.

More on heat. The physics SPA (not the relaxing type) next week is based on heat.

Somemore on heat. Err, nothing much really. The only not-so-good thing that happened related to heat just now was that I had to take a shower after doing violin practice (my hair only just dried when I finished violin practice) because it was too hot. My shirt was slightly soaked, as well as the handkerchief. Oh an update, now I put a handkerchief on my neck at the chin rest part so my sweat doesn't damage my chin rest and violin. Cannot afford to damage the tuning peg and chin rest bacause they are Italian made and I think it probably means very risky. And an amazing thing is that for the past three months, I have been playing the dip exam pieces (except the concerto) with my eyes closed. I think I can half sleep and play at the same time so it's an extrmemely effecient way of saving time.

Okay my next door neighbour is done practicing. I can go sleep now.

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